From low and abject themes the grov’ling muse
  Now mounts aerial to sing of arms
  Triumphant, and emblaze the martial acts
  Of Britain’s hero.

The next poem of our author was his Cyder, the plan of which he laid at Oxford, and afterwards compleated it in London.  He was determined to make choice of this subject, from the violent passion he had for the productions of nature, and to do honour to his native country.  The poem was founded upon the model of Virgil’s Georgics, and approaches pretty near it, which, in the opinion of critics in general, and Mr. Dryden in particular, even excels the Divine AEneid:  He imitates Virgil rather like a pursuer, than a follower, not servilely tracing, but emulating his beauties; his conduct and management are superior to all other copiers of that original; and even the admired Rapin (says Dr. Sewel) is much below him, both in design and success, ’for the Frenchman either fills his garden with the idle fables of antiquity, or new transformations of his own; and, in contradiction of the rules of criticism, has injudiciously blended the serious, and sublime stile of Virgil, with the elegant turns of Ovid in his Metamorphosis; nor has the great genius of Cowley succeeded better in his Books of Plants, who, besides the same faults with the former, is continually varying his numbers from one sort of verse to another, and alluding to remote hints of medicinal writers, which, though allowed to be useful, are yet so numerous, that they flatten the dignity of verse, and sink it from a poem, to a treatise of physic,’ Dr. Sewel has informed us, that Mr. Philips intended to have written a poem on the Resurrection, and the Day of Judgment, and we may reasonably presume, that in such a work, he would have exceeded his other performances.  This awful subject is proper to be treated in a solemn stile, and dignified with the noblest images; and we need not doubt from his just notions of religion, and the genuine spirit of poetry, which were conspicuous in him, he would have carried his readers through these tremendous scenes, with an exalted reverence, which, however, might not participate of enthusiasm.  The meanest soul, and the lowest imagination cannot contemplate these alarming events described in Holy Writ, without the deepest impressions:  what then might we not expect from the heart of a good man, and the regulated flights and raptures of a christian poet?  Our author’s friend Mr. Smith, who had probably seen the first rudiments of his design, speaks thus of it, in a poem upon his death.

  O! had relenting Heaven prolong’d his days,
  The tow’ring bard had sung in nobler lays: 
  How the last trumpet wakes the lazy dead;
  How saints aloft the cross triumphant spread;
  How opening Heav’ns their happier regions, shew,
  And yawning gulphs with flaming vengeance glow,
  And saints rejoice above, and sinners howl below. 
  Well might he sing the day he could not fear,
  And paint the glories he was sure to wear.